


But I'm Static

by pansexualorgana (MaximumMarygold)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Multi, OT3, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Stormtrooper Rebellion, bb-8 is a foul mouthed little menace, i love them, y e s s ss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 12:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13589655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaximumMarygold/pseuds/pansexualorgana
Summary: The first batch of defectors they get are children.Everyone had heard the stories at one point or another-- children stolen from their beds, cribs smeared with blood in villages turned to ash -- but no one wanted to believe them. No one wanted to believe they lived in a world that groomed children into soldiers into pawns sent to die.They crash landed, the oldest among them being only fifteen, lanky limbed and scared, the weight of the galaxy resting on her shoulders and a large chunk of her left side missing.“Help them,” she’d gurgled around crimson teeth.





	But I'm Static

**Author's Note:**

> mary stop writing things that aren't the kids you can never kill
> 
> i w i l l n o t 
> 
> i have a lot of star wars feelings okay FIGHT ME.

If you live long enough, you start to see the same eyes in different people. Leia had always thought that was bantha shit, when she was young. She had rolled her eyes at Maz the first time the smaller woman had said it. And the fifth. And the seventeenth.

It wasn’t something that she had to worry about, then -- no longer a princess, not yet a general, but in that space somewhere between. Where everything had been warm, and comforting, and tinged rose pink around the edges. Where she’d had Han on one side of her, Luke on the other, calming her with their constant presence and easy smiles.

Then, when she’d added Ben to her hip she thought, she thought she started to understand. When he’d scream from something only he could feel, when he’d cry, and plead, and beg for some invisible thing to go away.

 

Here’s the thing: she hadn’t recognized those eyes because she’d only ever seen the mask that hid them.

 

Here’s another: rebellions are often started without the spark realizing that they’d set the galaxy ablaze.

 

Fn-2187 used to be a stormtrooper.

Used to be a stormtrooper.

**_Used to be._ **

**_U s e d t o_ ** **.**

 

The first batch of defectors they get are children.

Everyone had heard the stories at one point or another-- children stolen from their beds, cribs smeared with blood in villages turned to ash -- but no one wanted to believe them. No one wanted to believe they lived in a world that groomed children into soldiers into pawns sent to die. 

They crash landed, the oldest among them being only fifteen, lanky limbed and scared, the weight of the galaxy resting on her shoulders and a large chunk of her left side missing. 

“Help them,” she’d gurgled around crimson teeth.

She’d collapsed onto the grass, and the meddroids had nearly been mobbed by a gaggle of screaming, terrified children in mini-trooper armor swarming around their fallen comrade, screaming about decommissioning and blaster bolts and  _ protect _ .

Leia was out of her depth, force sensitivity that had gone too ignored for too long zinging along her skin like lightning from her father’s fingers. She longed for Luke and Han, missed them with every cell in her body, like if she just wished for them  _ enough  _ they’d appear at her side to guide and steady her.

But Han was dead and Luke was off on some island planet in the middle of nowhere, the bright as stars, as planets, as the galaxy scavenger girl from Jakku sent to pry him off of the rocks and back to his family, by the ear if necessary, Force be with her.

Finn emerged from the gathered crowd then, still limping, leaning heavily on Poe at his side, his face so earnest and awe filled, half a second away from tears, as he held his hands towards the younglings. 

“My name is Finn,” he said, and his voice rang, the children quieted, their stares as wide as saucers, “they used to call me FN-2187. Will you let us help you?”

The children, seventeen of them in all, counting the eldest who was whisked off to medical as soon as the path was clear, flocked to Finn. Perfectly silent, perfect soldiers with their little spines so straight that you could use them to level a desk.

Finn crouched down, hissing as something in his back pulled. Opened his arms.

Had Poe not kept himself behind him, the former trooper would have been tackled to the ground.

He was crying, fingers clawing, scrabbling at the armor of the closest child. Ripping the pristine white armor from them. Throwing it onto the ground. Whispering that they were all safe, like it was a prayer. A promise. A vow. 

He didn’t stop, wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop until all sixteen were in their under blacks. 

He took their designations.

AL’s, and TN’s, and KC’s. Numbers rattled off in sequence.

They hadn’t been old enough to develop nicknames yet, not like Finn’s squad of Zeros, and Slip, and Nines. They needed something.

Leia sent around a roster, gathered names of everyone on the base, of family members, of heros, and legends. Something to work with, to start, to mold into what they wanted.

The first to choose was a girl who was nearly seven, by Dr. Kalonia’s approximation, who smiled with gap-toothed abandon at the list, tapping one tiny finger against a name, and looking up at Leia with eyes so bright she felt she might go blind, “Thaalia,” she said, her voice catching on the unfamiliar syllables. 

Leia thought it suited her well, with her star bright eyes and the freckles across her pink cheeks, “That’s lovely, Thaalia,” she said, ghosting her hand over the child’s hair, looking up at catching Finn’s eye where he was helping his own group of children choose.

“Alleine!” Another child called out, from Poe’s gaggle.

“Wasane!” Called a third.

And so it went.

“Lox!”

“Fros!”

“Wish!” 

On, and on. There was a Poe, and a Finn, and three Leia’s (her cheeks heated like a solar flare and she ducked her head; flattered. They didn’t have to do that, she told them, but Poe had interrupted like the little shit he was, wrapping the three of them, two girls and one who admitted sheepishly to not liking the idea of gender at all, in a beat hug. 

“That’s the best name in the whole  _ galaxy _ ,” he told them, and the frustrating part was that he absolutely meant it.)

The last to choose was the girl who’d smuggled them all out, wrapped in bacta patches and struggling to keep any real food down, so used to the First Order’s protein sludge.

She’d looked up through her lashes, darkly pigmented skin finally regaining it’s color and her chapped lips spliting in a tentative smile, “I kind of like… Rey. But…”

“You want something that’s just yours,” Leia got it, she did. They were calling the three other Leia’s “Le”, “Eia” and “Little L.” to keep things straight, “You could add something to the end of it, you know. Or before it.”

“What about Reia?” She’d asked.

Leia had smiled until her cheeks ached, and ached, and ached, until she didn't think she'd ever stop smiling, reaching out to squeeze Reia's hand, “Perfect."

 

Here's the thing: sometimes the good in people was too bright to be covered.

 

Here's another: that's what kept her going.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Reia is my new favorite name okay bye. Don't forget you can find me on tumblr right [here!](http://elevendamerons.tumblr.com/)


End file.
